Top SEO trends of 2013 part two

Following on from our first instalment, here is the second part of the top SEO trends of 2013. As before, it is vitally important to remember that the parameters and factors that affect SEO are constantly changing and require monitoring almost every day.

Our in-house team of SEO experts observe and track the latest trends in order to deliver the best results possible to a wide range of clientele. As mentioned in part one, we have recently noticed that the rise in popularity of mobile browsing, the difficulty of search engine manipulation and integrating social media have become incredibly important when it comes to SEO.

However, several more ways to improve and enhance visibility have become increasingly apparent over the past few months. All of which are fairly straightforward to implement for the majority of organisations.

Here is our Top SEO trends of 2013 part two

Adding and including multimedia

Any marketing professional or SEO expert will tell you that content is now the most important consideration. Search engines will crawl and index a site based on the text and will rank it accordingly. With good copy rewarded and webspam punished, it should be a prime concern for any company.

However, integrating multimedia such as pictures and video is now becoming more and more significant. Research as indicated that images and videos increase post interaction and can enhance the user’s experience more than just text alone.

Creating strong visuals can stir emotions and evoke feelings, meaning a user is more likely to share the page via social media, blogs or email. In order for search engines to pick up on these additions, images and videos should have a relevant description or summary with the right keywords, relevant tags, captions where appropriate and even a transcript.

Write longer content

Several articles with a word count between 400-600 words will still rank well on Google, however recent research has indicated that longer, more in-depth content has the ability to perform even better.

Although this is because the website will be considered as an authority or full of valuable content, the quantity and quality of backlinks is a standout ranking algorithm. Strong word counts deliver higher rankings, more inbound links and a greater number of visitors.

In order to avoid lots of filler and provide real value to the reader, plenty of examples add authenticity while images and analysis are also advantageous.

Google Authorship

Even though Google Authorship has been around for a few years, its influence in search results is starting to make a big difference. If you’re unaware, Google Authorship is a way to link content to your Google+ profile and integrate search results with other products on offer.

With an emphasis placed on creating engaging and alluring content, a link featuring a Google+ profile picture beneath it is sometimes reason enough for a user to visit the page.

While its unlikely for Google to ever officially confirm what affects rankings in order to protect algorithms, the search engine has confirmed that Authorship provides a ranking boost to content and improved click-through rates in organic results.

For more information on what affects Google search rankings today and how we can help your company flourish online, do not hesitate to get in contact.